When the first Scary Movie hit theaters last summer, secular critics marveled that it avoided an NC-17 rating for sexually explicit humor. The perverse slasher spoof grossed $157 million and sent the Disney-owned studio responsible scrambling for a sequel. It’s here. And according to ads for Scary Movie 2, it’s “More merciless. More shameless.” Give ’em points for honesty. The original horror/comedy dismantled slasher films. This sequel parodies supernatural thrillers (What Lies Beneath, Poltergeist, The House on Haunted Hill, etc.) with equal zeal and eagerness to offend. It opens with an Exorcist takeoff that portrays a Catholic priest as a foul-mouthed child molester who prays fervently to cast out a bowel movement. That establishes the tone for what follows—85 minutes of vulgar, profane, mean-spirited, violent, desperately unfunny gags. No bodily fluid is left unspilled.
The setup (“plot” is far too kind) involves the survivors from the first film attending college and taking part in a psychology experiment in a haunted house. Once there, a bisexual guy molests a possessed clown doll. The stoner of the group gets rolled up and smoked by a giant, triffid-like cannibus plant. And the resident spook rapes Tori Spelling (much to her glee). This is sick stuff, and it only gets sicker.
Cameron Meier of the Orlando Weekly stated, “It truly can be blamed, along with other recent adolescent comedies, for desensitizing audiences to disgusting sexual visuals, drug references and obscenities.” Pray that it doesn’t earn enough to justify Scary Movie 3.
